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June 15, 2017

(+++) CRAMMING FOR LIFE AFTER FINALS

The ability to slice and
dice data makes it possible to take essentially the same information and
present it in multiple ways, resulting in – among many other things – the
numerous Princeton Review college guides, which focus mostly on the same
schools but arrange them in different orders according to each book’s emphasis.
Princeton Review (which is not affiliated with Princeton University but, as a
producer of guides to higher education, surely benefits from its name)
generally produces lengthy oversize paperbacks crammed with small-type
information on schools’ requirements, student-body statistics, financial
information and the like. With Colleges
That Create Futures, though, it goes beyond those data, or more accurately
into a subset of them, to create a standard-size volume purporting to show
schools that excel at getting students satisfying post-college work because of
their non-classroom programs. These
include internships, alumni networking opportunities, high-quality career
guidance, student-faculty collaborative projects, and the like.

This specialized volume is
not one of Princeton Review’s strongest, although some college-bound students
wavering between or among specific schools may find it useful. The problem here
is that the underlying premise of Colleges
That Create Futures is inherently subjective. Much of a student’s success
in college depends on his or her ability to navigate campus and off-campus
life, making his or her own opportunities by developing networks of fellow
students on campus and going beyond the basic requirements of courses when it
comes to interactions with professors. This is true at virtually all colleges
except highly regimented institutions, such as the nation’s military academies.
So the fact – if it is a fact – that some colleges make this easier than others
do is of only modest significance. But do
the 50 colleges here make this sort of outside-the-classroom exploration easier
than other colleges do? That is a subjective judgment, for all that Princeton
Review explains about its methodology for selecting these schools.

A student trying to decide whether
this book will be helpful might well be inclined to start with an alphabetical
list of the colleges included; but, oddly, there is none. The schools are
presented in alphabetical order throughout the book, but there is no listing of
them at the front, and the listings at the back are by location, tuition and
enrollment – useful categories all, but they do not take the place of a simple
master list. As for the reasons colleges are included here, they vary. Oberlin
College, for example, is praised as “open-minded, incredibly inclusive,
equality-embracing, and socially mindful,” with “feel-good, freethinking,
granola-crunching vibes” that are environmentally sensitive and LGBT-friendly. Marist
College is said to strike “the perfect balance between a liberal arts campus
and a high-tech university system” and have “the same kind of balance between
aesthetics and power.” These are clearly subjective comments, but some colleges
get more-objective treatment, as in the note about one of the many special offerings
at DePauw University: “Blending a traditional liberal arts curriculum with
real-world experiences in business and entrepreneurship, the Management Fellows
Program also includes a full-time, semester-long, credit-bearing business
internship.” Colleges That Create Futures
is thus a blend of opinion and fact to a greater degree than many other
Princeton Review books. Thumbing through it and stopping to read a bit about the
colleges chosen for highlighting here is a must to determine whether the
approach will be useful for any given student or family.

The unusual nature of Colleges That Create Futures is largely
shown through the colleges that are not
included. Stanford University is here, but not Harvard or Yale (indeed, no
college at all in Connecticut); in New Jersey, there are Drew University and
Stevens Institute of Technology, but no Princeton. The selection of schools
could easily be described as “quirky” if Princeton Review (where author Robert
Franek is editor-in-chief) chose to say that the selections were made by, say,
team debate and eventual consensus. But no – data are foundational here, and
the underlying concept is to give students objective
information on schools that excel in non-classroom ways at preparing
students for life after college. The book nevertheless does not feel entirely data-driven – and in
truth, a touch of the opinionated human is not a bad thing in today’s highly
intense college search. Whether the balance of personal and impersonal material
in Colleges That Create Futures is genuinely
useful will be a matter for individual college-bound students, and their
families, to decide – by forming their own opinions of the book’s inclusions
and exclusions.